I'll need you to forever call my name
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: Charlie first sees Fleur at the Triwizard Tournament's First Task. She faces down a dragon and comes out of it looking as majestic as a Phoenix, and oh - that's love. For Sam.


**I'll need you to forever call my name**

 _ **i.**_

She's seventeen when he sees her, a Champion for her school, fearlessly facing a dragon – a beast a dozen times her size – and singing it to sleep.

Their eyes cross, one moment that seems to last forever, and he smiles.

She's the most beautiful thing Charlie has ever seen, and that's not a term that Charlie uses lightly.

But this girl, this fiery blonde girl – woman, really – is as majestic as the dragon she's facing, as awe-inspiring as the thunderstorms Charlie liked to watch as a kid, lightning crashing down from the skies to the ground with a sound that rattled his bones.

 _(that's kind of how he feels right now – rattled, right down to the very fiber of his being)_

 _(he needs to know this girl)_

 _ **ii.**_

She's seventeen when she spots him, red-headed and rugged, standing out in the crowd watching her like a precious stone stands out in the midst of the rubble – an unpolished diamond maybe, or a cracked opal.

Outstanding, but flawed, at least on the outside.

 _(she knows all about being judged on your outside looks only)_

She's had hundreds of men and women look at her with lust in their eyes, like she's a prey to pounce on. She tunes them out.

He's different though. He looks at her not as though he'll do anything for her, but like he's trying to figure her out.

 _(and that makes her curious, an itching that she feels right down to her bones)_

 _(she needs to know this boy)_

 _ **iii.**_

He thinks of her almost every day back in Romania. He would have stayed to watch the Tournament – for her and for Harry, who was Ron's friend – had he been able to, but alas… Duty called.

He wonders about her life – what are her likes, her dislikes.

Does she look at the moon sometimes, wondering if other people do the same, too? Does she think about him the way he does about her?

 _(does she wonder what it would feel like to hold him the way he does? Does she imagine them meeting, a thousand scenarios she enacts in her dreams the way he does?)_

 _(does she even remember him?)_

He starts learning French, and looks up the language of flowers after her name, and wonders…

 _ **iv.**_

She thinks of him every time she sees red hair, and every time she doesn't. Her eyes wander, sometimes, expecting a tall stranger with burn scars and a kind smile and something in her stomach always flutters in her stomach every time she hears a new voice.

Sometimes it feels like she made it all up – a smile, a look: these are all she has to go on.

What if she made those things into something bigger than what they were – what if all she's building herself up is disappointment?

She doesn't even know his name.

(she doesn't need to, not for this – she knows he has a nice smile, the smile of a man who knows how to laugh, and that's the first thing her mother told her to look for in a man)

She daydreams about being next to him, about feeling his warmth, his body pulled tight against hers. Sometimes, she ties up her hair and pretends the wind brushing against her shoulders is his warm breath tickling her bare skin.

She imagines them finally meeting properly, every possibility more exciting and more terrifying than the other.

 _(does he even remember her?)_

 _ **v.**_

He considers writing letters to his family – Bill, or maybe Dad – asking for what to do. He won't ask his mother. She's finally stopped bugging him about grandchildren, he's not about to open up that can of worms anytime soon.

He considers his words carefully in his head, writing entire sentences in his mind.

' _How do I approach a woman I saw once, days/weeks/months ago and thought about constantly since? How do I tell her that I find her more awe-inspiring than anything else this world could dream of, that I see her face in every flame I see, warm and fierce and wild?'_

' _How do I find Fleur Delacour?'_

These letters remain unwritten, and instead he sends off his usual ' _I'm fine's._

His colleagues start calling him lovesick. "Go find your girl," they sigh. "This is becoming unbearable," they laugh.

He starts saving up days to leave Romania for a while.

 _ **vi.**_

The only reason she starts talking to Bill Weasley is because he reminds her of another redhead, the one haunting her every dream.

He looks nice, and he eyes her respectfully almost immediately, but there's an instant, a fraction of second that she would have missed had she not being paying close attention to every ginger man she meets, where he doesn't, and that's enough for her to dismiss him.

But the shade of red-orange is right, and the smile looks just as nice, and they work together. They can be friends.

He mentions brothers and an entire family of redhead, all of them going to Hogwarts, and she knows it's a leap but she can't help but hope that maybe… Maybe.

They go out for drinks once a week, Bill, her and the rest of the interns at Gringotts (she's just starting but she already knows she's here to stay) and the two of them are always the last to leave.

She tells him, too drunk to care, about the man she saw almost two years ago now, and the way she can't forget him.

He laughs, and keeps laughing until he almost looks like he's choking on air.

"You should meet Charlie," he finally tells her, breathless, his cheeks red and his eyes shining with a mischievous light. "I think you'll get on very well. He's been hung up on some girl – he never said who, but I know."

His eyes twinkles, and as Fleur gets it, she laughs too.

 _ **vii.**_

They meet again in England, in his parents' house's garden.

The old apple tree he used to climb is blooming and Bill brought his newest coworker to introduce her to the family and everything is perfect.

Better than any scenario he could have made up in his mind.

 _(her lips are soft and moist and taste of the apple pie his mother made still)_

 _(it tastes like a small slice of heaven)_


End file.
